


this winter hasn't been so rough (dark days)

by KilltheRhythm



Category: Sense8
Genre: A little Felix centric, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Slight fluff, Slow Burn, felix gets his moment of badass, has kid Felix and Wolfgang too, nonlinear storytelling, pre slash (sorta but not really), slight angst, still not good at writing forwards, the cancellation has broken my heart rip, title comes from pup song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 01:51:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11326188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheRhythm/pseuds/KilltheRhythm
Summary: A little history, and where we are now.





	this winter hasn't been so rough (dark days)

Felix had managed a new record of how many detentions he could get in a row. It was a little impressive that a nine year old could come up with so many inventive and unique ways to leave himself sitting in the back of the math class every Friday afternoon for an extra hour. Perhaps a talent, you could say. At first it was for mouthing off to a teacher, then fighting a kid, followed by selling cigarettes. He wonders that if he just continues being bad, his teachers will eventually stop trying to correct him.

He'd already figured that was the case, a tiny elementary school aged thief. It was small things, like sticks of gum and candy bars that he took, blaming the fact that his family didn't have the money to buy them. After all, he had to experience life. It wasn't like he was stupid though, Felix could read and write better than most of, if not all of his classmates, and he already knew his times tables. He was just bored.

Felix meets Wolfgang on his tenth, or maybe his twelfth detention in a row. Wolfgang was taller than him at the time, and tanner too. Felix could tell he came from a rich family. It was the hair. He had a theory that all rich kids had blonde hair. Most likely had something to do with their food, or vitamins. Felix's family was low on the former. This new kid wears a dumb leather jacket that is probably worth more than Felix's entire wardrobe too.

Still, he's a good host. He welcomes Wolfgang to his office. The aforementioned "office space" was a desk with a pack of cigarettes and his most prized possession, a knife from his parents. Wolfgang snorts, but shakes his hand all the same.

After Wolfgang introduces himself, Felix knows that they'll be friends, even if purely based on the fact that this new boy has the silliest name he's ever heard.

\----

He goes through the shop one more time, then the apartment, finally the balcony. Tries to let it sink in. It's been what, maybe three quarters of a day at most and he knows that that isn't much time at all, not even not in the grand scheme of things and no longer is he sure if he makes sense but it doesn't matter because Wolfgang is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Wolfgang's apartment, or half of the apartment really is still messy. There's a suitcase open, but it is only half full. The wardrobe is still open. Impromptu, Felix feels it in his bones. He knows Wolfgang, and this is out of character.

Felix lights a cigarette with surprisingly unshaky hands. Considering the general amount of distress he'd been in it is a small miracle that his nerves don't have him twitching. He still is trying to process everything, omitting the emotions from his train of thought. Felix could figure this out.

Retrace the steps: where could Wolfgang be? In India? He'd mentioned it a few times, hell, they'd half seriously made a plan maybe two months ago, tangled up in Felix's bed, mostly faded. Neither of them were the dreaming type when they were stoned, and he knew that there was a certain groundedness to that conversation. But somehow Felix knew India wasn't the place though, albeit having no information to say otherwise.

Where else? Paris? London? Madrid? Felix paces once more through Wolfgang's room. He didn't have the funds to trot through Europe searching for his best friend. A dead end so early into it all.

Or maybe the crime families in Berlin had finally caught him. Felix and Wolfgang had tried hard to toe the line, not offend anyone. They'd played it safe enough, or so he had thought. The idea of Fuchs or anyone else capturing his friend, his brother made him feel sick. He preferred not to dwell on this idea.

Felix mumbles a wordless prayer, though in all of his days he'd never believed in a god. As if the heavens had listened, within the next second his phone starts to ring. The number is from out of Berlin, out of the country actually (his phone says San Francisco), and usually Felix would never accept the call, but now he's pressed the green button before the second ring. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Hello, this is Felix Brenner." He says cautiously.

"Great! Uh, hi," a female voice says from the other line. She sounds nervous, though Felix feels the same. "This is Nomi Marks."

"I don't know who that is."

Nomi sounds only more nervous. "Yeah. About that. This is gonna sound absolutely crazy, but... I know Wolfgang. I know where he is."

Felix takes the phone away from his ear to slap himself across the face. He wasn't dreaming. "Okay. Why do you know Wolfie and where is he? Is he okay?"

The woman on the line sounds incredibly uncomfortable. "He's in London."

Felix leaves Wolfgang's room. "Why do you know him?"

"It's- it's a long story, Felix. But I know him really well and I knew I needed to tell you."

Felix runs down the stairs of the apartment, locking the doors. "Tell me. I have the time." The Berlin international airport isn't that far away from the key shop.

\----

He's not sure who's idea it is first; his or Wolfgang's, but it doesn't matter. They share a mind, two ten year olds on the prowl. In the half year or so that they'd been friends, they'd done everything: gotten into detention together an innumerable amount, smoked cigarettes for the first time and ran away from home once. Felix is used to nabbing things now, second nature to him, but Wolfgang has not yet experienced the adrenaline rush of making away with an entire winter coat's worth of snacks from a convenience store, has not had to. Unlike Felix, there are bottles of Coca Cola in his fridge, loaves of bread without mold on them in the pantry.

There's an irony to this that they had not realized, considering what Wolfgang's family did.

Wolfgang watches him blankly as Felix slides chocolate bars into the inner pockets of his jacket. He knows how to fight, but apparently not how to steal. Felix laughs and teases him, handing the blonde another piece of candy.

"Don't just fucking stand there." Felix says with all of the authority that a ten year old can muster.

They end up losing half of their goods in the mad dash through the streets, chased by an angry shopkeeper and his dogs, but as they eat slightly melted candy bars on the dilapidated roof of the Brenner house, Wolfgang knows that he has experienced something special. He'll remember it for the rest of his life. Staring at a wild eyed Felix, they shake hands.

Partners. Brothers too, eventually.

\----

"Oh my god," Wolfgang says for quite possibly the thousandth time within the past three hours. Felix, now comfortably nested in blankets and pillows in his bed laughs, sinking into the soft mess. He found it quite ridiculous that Wolfgang had put nearly every single pillow in the house onto his bed, but his friend's carefulness was absolutely endearing. It'd felt like years since they'd been together.

"What?" Felix says, pushing himself up to sit again. He winces slightly, but manages. He can see Wolfgang twitch, how he wants to help him, but Felix mouths 'don't'. "I'm alive, aren't I, Wolfie?"

Wolfgang dives into the bed next to him, shifting through the pillows and blankets. Felix wonders if he should tell him that he actually preferred a firm bed, but the sight of his friend being bright and excited was a rare one. "That's the point! You're alive! Amazing."

Felix can feel Wolfgang's breath on his neck. It's getting dark outside, and he already feels a little tired. Instead, he wraps an arm around Wolfgang. His friend usually hates people touching him, but Felix had always been an exception. They lie on the bed together, in something that Felix would call spooning if Wolfgang didn't slap him every time he said the word.

"I'm glad I'm back."

Wolfgang is so close to Felix that he can hear his heartbeat, the rumble of his breath. His own heart hitches in his chest, like how it did around Kala sometimes. He resists the urge to wrap his arms around Felix for a moment, but does anyways, careful enough to not hurt his friend.

"I'm glad you are too." He pauses for a moment and then "never again, okay?"

Felix turns around so they face each other, faces centimeters away. "I'd never." His face breaks out into an easy smile. "But you can't either."

Wolfgang, maybe in a rare moment of humor, or maybe completely seriously replied "Never."

They stay close like that for a while, breathing the same air and occasionally making idle chitchat until Felix falls asleep softly. For once it felt like just him and another person, as if Wolfgang was no longer a sensate. Peaceful. He kisses Felix for a moment, maybe out of impulse or habit, and slides out of bed.

There were keys to be made.

\----

Between watching (stolen) VHS tapes of shitty action movies, sneaking into lower league football matches and avoiding detention, the two cultivate a strong friendship. Wolfgang's house is labyrinthian and terrifying, too threatening to hang out for long in. It comes with the addition of Wolfgang's father, who is far worse than Felix's dad, who just happens to never be there. Felix's house is cramped and ramshackle, near the exact opposite of Wolfgang's as it appears to contain more people than rooms. There is Felix's mother, his half sister and older brother as well as his two younger siblings, and occasionally, his father is there. The Brenners aren't nice people, but both boys know that they're better than Wolfgang's family.

By now, preteens, they've moved up from pickpocketing and mild trespassing. It started with Felix holding up people, whether that be a group in the street or a shop owner, as Wolfgang rummaged through the place. Felix had a gift with words that his blonde friend couldn't dream of obtaining; he could lie like no one else. So as Felix popped tiny trinkets in his pockets whilst he chatted up the victims, Wolfgang would remove the things of value.

From then they moved on to robberies that did not involve sending a thirteen year old boy out into a group of adults to chat. Wolfgang and Felix got good at picking locks and the like. Now houses were game. It all seemed to slowly escalate, though neither had dreamed of cracking safes like how Wolfgang's dad had tried.

Felix's mom had caught them stealing more than once, though she didn't seem to care. Wolfgang wonders sometimes why she didn't, but the Brenners' home life seemed to serve as an explanation. Instead, she bestowed upon them her own moral code. It didn't matter if you stole or lied to strangers or beat someone up, as long as you were loyal to your family. In the words of cheesy action movies that they watched late at night, they were ride or die.

Family was the bit that got Wolfgang. The Bogdanows were quite possibly his least favorite people on the planet. He considered Felix as family far more than his father or uncle or cousins. Felix is as good as his brother, no, better than a brother. There's something there, he knows, but doesn't have a word for it yet.

\----

Felix breathed in the air for a moment. Unfortunately, there was nothing distinctly London-esque about it, but that was made up for by the fact that he heard someone say 'wanker' every other minute unironically. England was exciting in and of itself, and for a moment he wishes that Wolfgang were here for it until he remembers what happened. Guilt twangs sharply in the back of his head.

Wandering around the airport area, he calls up Nomi. He needed more information. She'd tried to tell him that he should stay in Berlin, that it was too dangerous to leave, that they could fix this on their own, without him.

Bullshit. Felix didn't care if people lived in Wolfgang's head. He knew him better than they ever would.

Nomi unhappily gives him more details, and extensive googling gives him a better picture of what to do. BPO was a fortress? No problem. Felix had dealt with 'fortresses' before. Years of breaking and entering, lock picking and general deception were about to pay off.

"You can't just fucking break into BPO by yourself." Nomi says to him over the phone. Felix sits at a cafe, smoking a cigarette.

"I'm not. You guys are gonna help me."

There is clear apprehension in Nomi's voice. Did she think that this was a job for only her cluster, whatever that meant, to do? Felix didn't give a flying fuck. "Felix we need to plan this, they could lock you up and experiment on you or--"

"I'm not a sensate. It doesn't matter."

"Felix, they could kill you! You'd never see your family ever again."

Though she can't see it, Felix shrugs. "Don't care. Wolfgang is my family."

Nomi sighs again, more deeply, and the phone passes hands. Now it is a man's voice, but still American. "Listen to me, Brenner. You're not going to do this. It is ridiculous and insane and you will get caught. I can't let you do this."

He doesn't get how people he's never met before acting like they've known him his entire life are supposed to convince him. Fuck that. "Look, cop, I don't care. Tell me what to do, help me, and this goes better for everyone."

There's a great deal of silence over the line, then the rushed talking of seven voices in seven different accents as they all argue over what should be done. Eventually there is a moment of quiet, then Nomi's voice again.

"Okay. We'll help you."

\----

Felix tries to breath slowly, rhythmically. He can't do it like Wolfgang, has never been able to. Wolfgang was a better fighter for sure, even though now at the age of fourteen, Felix was taller than him. You could see it just in how Wolfgang stood, how he judged the space around him.

That was not to say Felix couldn't fight; he could, but not like Wolfgang. He couldn't pull the badassery straight out of his pocket like his friend. Give Felix a knife or even a stick and he couldn't be beat, but Wolfgang had already taken down two of these guys with only his fists.

"Felix," Wolfgang says over the wind. There are still many others around them. "I think we may have fucked with the wrong guys."

Felix rolled his eyes. He may not have been the better fighter, but he didn't let that stop him. "Wolfe, we are the wrong guys. C'mon."

They end that winter night with blood on their hands but a bolstered reputation. Felix says that no one would fuck with them now, not at school and not in the street. Two stood against many.

"Since when did you come to school?" Wolfgang asks Felix. The other teenager frowns at him. There are a million things Wolfgang could say, the first one coming to mind being 'if you did you could be valedictorian' but they both know that Felix Brenner would rather be dead than that.

He knows Felix knows what he's been thinking by how he looks at him. It's like they share a mind, he thinks. That'd be pretty cool though, it'd make stealing easier, Wolfgang contemplates. There's something shitty on the TV but he's not paying attention. Yeah, sharing minds would be pretty fun, especially with Felix.

There's blood under both of their nails. For some reason, they know that there's no turning back now.

\----

In retrospect, Felix probably should've tackled the issue earlier. He wasn't a dumbass, he'd noticed Wolfgang acting strangely since he'd cracked the safe. Well actually, he started acting strangely halfway through cracking the safe, but Wolfgang got a free pass for that considering that he was under high stress.

But after that? Felix was stupid for not confronting him then. He could see through that shit easy. Acting like he was getting a lap dance at Fuchs's place, playing in the snow like he was on bath salts, talking to himself constantly; all were warning signs. He felt a little bad that he hadn't done anything about it, but what was he to do?

Wolfgang had saved his life, perhaps that's why he was so apprehensive. Well, the apprehension had melted away now, leaving only icy nerves as he padded through the industrial hallway pushing a cart full of waste materials-- or that's what it seemed. It was his turn to save Wolfgang, he figures. So far no one in the entire BPO building had blinked an eye at him this entire time. The hazmat mask probably helped.

Felix pushes the doors open to go to where the trucks are, and his heartbeat picks up. The waste produced by BPO went to special plants to be disposed of, or so Nomi had said. All he had to do was put his containers (the largest contained Wolfgang) in the truck and drive away. Easy. It was always the easy parts that scared Felix the most.

He wills his hands not to shake as he loads the boxes into the van. Now is not the time. He wishes that he hadn't skipped theater class so much in high school. The hazmat mask he was wearing inside the building feels heavy on his face, so he pulls it off. Time slowly to a standstill.

Then footsteps clack behind him. He does not turn around, but hears "Wasn't Thomas supposed to be driving this truck today?"

Felix feels panicked, but instead walks to the driver's seat of the car calmly. He could lie. "He's sick. I'm covering him."

Before whoever was behind him could respond, Felix has the van revving. There is no plan as to where to go exactly, just get back home to Berlin as quickly as possible. For now he drives as far away from London as possible.

Until he realizes something: he doesn't know where he's going, and he doesn't know how he'll get to mainland Europe. Panic again fills his lungs, and it takes strength to keep the van steady. Things smack around in the back, and Felix winces. He needed a plan.

"Hello?" Nomi's voice echoes through his phone, foreign but reassuring.

"I need help." Felix says, driving in a direction that he hoped was east.

"Really now?" Nomi asks, sarcasm obvious. He'd already needed their help plenty of times just to get into BPO. "With what?"

"I don't know how to get out of England."

There is a pause, and the voices again chatter, until one with an accent that Felix can't put a finger on begins to speak. "Alright. I lived in London for a while. I can get you out of here. You're going to need to switch vehicles soon though."

Riley then continues to explain what to do. Occasionally another man, who he doesn't think he's gotten the name of, Lito maybe, tells him what to say when people stop him. It all goes by in a blur, and suddenly he is on a ferry to France with a new car and his "sick brother" in tow.

\----

"Bayern are so gonna lose," Felix drawls, still a little faded. Wolfgang stares blankly at the TV, sips his beer. It feels like his mouth is made of cotton balls.

"Don't say that, you'll jinx it," he tells Felix, though he doesn't believe it either, head a little stuffy and still pretty blazed. Felix had always been better with his weed than Wolfgang.

They're seventeen and by this point, they know their future and how things are gonna be. There is no way in hell that they'd ever split, not now, not with most of their lives being intertwined. First time they got drunk, stoned, did molly or acid, they all did together. More serious things, like first robbery or jumping someone; they'd done that together too. They were on the same wavelength.

Felix can see the future now, through his glassy red eyes and the slightly cracked tv screen. He knows neither of them would go to college, though Wolfgang had the money to and Felix had the grades. No, they'll open up their own locksmith shop and share a nice apartment, and steal enough to live lavishly for the rest of their days. It's the life he'd want to live, the kind that he could brag about. If he had kids he'd tell them about the days when their dad was one of the most badass thieves in all of Berlin.

For now though he's just a stoned teenager watching a football game. He sits there in the comfortable chair that is always his when he stays at Wolfgang's house, legs parted and a hand resting on his thigh. If his friend is staring at him he doesn't seem to notice.

Wolfgang likes football, hates Bayern like how Felix does too, but he can't seem to focus on the game. His eyes may be directed towards the TV, but the emphasis remains on the corner of his vision where Felix resides. His friend is doing absolutely nothing distracting, just watching the game and making idle chitchat. Felix is rarely ever quiet, but Wolfgang has grown used to the sound of his voice in the background. It's reassuring.

He could blame the weed or the beer, or even the fact that they were just teenagers. There were a million excuses Wolfgang could make to himself, but they didn't change that he couldn't keep his eyes off Felix. His internal monologue switches from trying to focus on the tv screen in front of him to questioning what the fuck was wrong with himself.

"Wolfgang," Felix snaps his fingers. Wolfgang stares at the TV blankly. Dortmund had recently scored, maybe. He hadn't been paying attention. "Wolfgang, wake the fuck up."

"Hm?!" Wolfgang goes, popping up from his seat. He stares at Felix, thinking hard. He wants--

Suddenly the room around him dissipates and he is in the backseat of a car. Groggily, he opens bleary eyes to only catch a glimpse of his surroundings before the headache kicks in.

Wolfgang thinks he sees Felix, or someone that looks like Felix, in the driver's seat, messing with something on his phone. It's hard to tell, everything is blurry. The Felix esque person looks at him. There's probably an emotion on his face but it's hard to tell with his head still swimming.

Felix looks back at his phone. Nomi has texted him. Don't let him wake up.

Wolfgang narrows his eyes, is still trying to determine if this mystery stranger sitting in the car (not driving, but they were still moving forward, another mystery in itself) is in fact Felix. He thinks that it really is as the man turns around in the car again, is almost sure of it as he moves towards him. If only his sight was a little clearer, because it almost certainly was Felix, he could even see the little scar on his throat. That thought leaves his mind quickly as something slams into his head and the world goes black again.

When Wolfgang wakes with an actual sense of memory, it is in Felix's bedroom in Berlin. He can't remember how he got there, but there he lies, with a blanket draped over him. His vision is clearer now, clear enough to see the curtains flutter softly. He's wearing Felix's clothes, can tell simply by how they're all too long in the limbs and have actual colors on them.

Felix's voice is audible, more than audible now. He's on the phone with someone. A woman. An Indian woman. Kala. Dread slams into the pit of his stomach.

"Berlin?! You took him back?! Do you know how dumb that is?" He can hear Kala yell.

"Where else was I supposed to go?"

Kala is loud enough to be heard even though she is not on speakerphone. "Paris! I thought we had an agreement."

"Maybe you did with Wolfgang, but not with me." Felix snaps. This is quite possibly the first time in years that he's heard his friend use his full first name.

"It isn't safe!"

Wolfgang can almost hear Felix roll his eyes. "You said you had Whispers. I can deal with everyone else."

The phone clicks off, or he suspects so as it gets impossibly quiet. There's some serenity here, away from the facilities he'd been trapped in for-- hours, days, weeks? There was no way to tell the time. He lets his eyes close again and his mind drifts off to when they were teenagers again, watching the Bayern game. There must be some reason why his brain has fixated on that day, and he replays it again; Bayern and Dortmund, Felix blowing smoke rings, someone scoring, and then it all fast forwards to him straddling Felix, hands in his hair, desperate. He feels funny and warm, that that was the memory that he recalled when he first came to.

A shadow passes over him and he opens one eye. Kala stands over him, face a portrait of pure concern. She opens her mouth to speak, and it could be on a multitude of things. No, not now, he thinks, and lets the connection sever. He can deal with the guilt later.

Moments later, another presence enters the room, denting the bed as they sit next to Wolfgang softly. He can almost instantly tell that it is Felix, far before the other man flops down completely, lying next to him. Moonlight comes from between the curtains, highlights his features and pools on his chest. Familiarity floods his senses, warms his heart at seeing his friend again, tranquil and safe.

Instinctively, he locks pinkies with Wolfgang. They're not holding hands, not really, but their fingers intertwine slightly, like how they had throughout the years when they needed the support. Neither of them have to talk, there's a connection here that Wolfgang feels as strongly as, or stronger than he does with his cluster.

"She really likes you." Felix says finally, and these are not the words that Wolfgang wanted to hear first. It should've been something poetic, or a line from Conan, or anything else. Not this. Wolfgang didn't want to hear any of this right now.

"Yeah. I know."

Felix turns to face him. He doesn't look impish anymore, just tired. "You like her too?" He doesn't need Wolfgang's response, just shakes his head slightly and says "You do. I know you do. You love her."

There's nothing to be said, so Wolfgang just nods again. He can't get the sad expression off of his face. Felix frowns at him, serious for once. The silence is too heavy, so Wolfgang cuts it himself. He wants Felix to know, to understand how he feels, past platonic. "I mean, I love you too, Felix."

Felix cackles quietly, shaking his head. For a moment Wolfgang sees him as an elementary schooler, and then a dumb teenager, and finally as himself again. He nuzzles Wolfgang's cheek slightly, but there were equal chances that that happened in Wolfgang's imagination. "You don't have to tell me that."

They stay close, lying on the linen sheets. Felix doesn't share Wolfgang's blanket, but stays impossibly close. He can feel every movement easily from here. Felix smiles, intertwines their hands completely, and Wolfgang doesn't mind, not now.

"I've always known."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> why must I always like the unpopular ships i s2g. wrote this a while back & here we go. first sense8 story tho I highkey wanna write a sun in jail story (prison lesbians? prison lesbians.) super sad that there will be no more sense8 bc I love max mauff & max riemelt but at least there's another freier fall yknow. anywho thanks for reading. 
> 
> #renewsense8?


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